Should I hire agency support or freelancers to do my marketing? The pros and cons on who to work with on your marketing strategy
How to structure your marketing team is a conversation we have with clients almost daily. And we understand the challenge. The long game for most businesses we work with is to have a fully functioning in-house marketing team, and we back that entirely but for many startups and SMEs, the reality is that that’s just not feasible in the early years. And that’s where external marketing support can really come into play but with so many people offering “marketing” services, choosing the right fit for your business can be seriously overwhelming. So let us break down the options for you.
Hiring Agency Support
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Resources - chances are, most agencies you work with will have access to some great platforms and software to help monitoring your business and marketing efforts more fluid. With bigger teams, you’ll have access to impressive little black books too and a wide array of skillsets.
Experience - with more people working on your business, the wealth of experience they have under their belt will only benefit you. They should have a good grasp on what works, latest industry trends and software to support analysis to help fine tune the work they do for you.
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Expensive - that flashy city office that wowed you during the initial pitch comes at a price. High overheads govern the work they do. They will always be looking at increasing their own bottom line more than they will yours. With that in mind, agency fees aren’t cheap.
Staffing - the person you buy into within the agency is usually at director level but the people working day to day on your account are most likely going to be quite junior. The majority of the contact you have with them, is unlikely to therefore be the person working predominantly on your account. There is also a more frequent turnover of staff within an agency, which can often lead to an inconsistency of work quality.
Hiring Freelance Support
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Expertise - it’s rare to find a freelancer without a solid amount of experience under the belt to give them the confidence to work for themselves. What’s more, freelancers are working for themselves - no mean feat - and have a level of appreciation and understanding of what it takes to run a business. You’ll find that as a result of that, the value they add to your business often goes above and beyond what you take them on to do.
Cost-effective - with no flashy office or big overheads, freelancers solely charge for the time they work for you and any agreed expenses. Whilst you might gulp at their rate cards or initial quote, you’ll ultimately save around 20-30% a year working with a freelancer vs a full time employee as you will eliminate benefits such as sick days, time off, pension provision, health care and the need to provide them with tech and tools for them to do their job.
Freelancers love what they do - it’s impossible to freelance in a specific field without really loving what you do for a living. There are many challenges a freelancer faces by working for themselves and this shouldn’t be underestimated. Freelancers shoulder all responsibility for the work they provide you with and as such, you’ll find they work far more diligently than your employees.
Flexibility - they have the ability to plugin to your team or business needs as and when required for specific projects or short-term needs. Once you build up a good rapport with a freelancer, you can rest assured you nearly always have the support you need for any upcoming projects or where you need to inject a specific skillset that might not exist full time within your team.
They’re remote working pros - freelancers are very well versed at working remotely so if you don’t have enough desk space for them, don’t sweat it. They’ll crack on with the job in hand (and probably prefer not having to commute anywhere) and still deliver great work.
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There are A LOT of them out there - if you thought deciding on your best approach to your marketing function was arduous, try picking the right freelancer! There are so many out there that all offer something a little different that finding the right fit can be a challenge. Often you have to kiss a few frogs to find the right one and that can be both costly and time-consuming.
Lack of commitment - many freelancers are treated like an outsider when employed by a business and that disconnect can occasionally lead to a lack of commitment from them…a ‘why bother with them, if they don’t bother with me?’ mentality. Also, given the nature of freelancing and unpredictability of it, you’ll find that they’ll be working on several projects at the same time. Sometimes this might lead them to overestimate or underestimate their scope of work with you (or others) and lead to scrambled working schedules.
Security - freelancers are lone rangers and yet you’re often giving them access to a lot of information about your business. Whilst the vast majority of freelancers are trustworthy, as with all people, there can be some bad eggs and the risk of that can be daunting, particularly if you work in sensitive fields. Always ensure your contracts with them are watertight for this and always always always have a contract - you’d be surprised how many freelancers tell us they work without one!
The solution?
We’re not very good at selling ourselves. In fact, since starting The Doers, all our work has been found organically through word of mouth. But we created our business as a solution to the problems outlined above. We’re the perfect hybrid of all the positives of agency support with all the positives of working with freelancers. The best bit? You can work with several different people but as all our work is project managed by Laura and Jess, you don’t have to manage them all. It’s a win win. The other benefit is that we’ve done the hard work for you. All our freelancers have been screened and vetted, tried and tested so we know the work they deliver is top notch.
